Page 35 - Keralite Magazine _2020

KERALITE  APRIL 20 20 35
rigid; we had fun. There were entertaining exercises create enthusiastic dynamics that support others’ conduct ourselves, speak impromptu, organize
that we all had to take part in. Also, for every class opinions. This promotes independence and the speeches, and use hand gestures, voice, and vocab
we had a president, vice president, secretary, and a ability to make choices. An organization is nothing in our speeches. Every week, I could see
sergeant at arms. Every position had certain without its leaders. In order for an organization to improvement in myself and my peers, and I was
responsibilities - from starting the meeting, to continue operation, new members must come in becoming more comfortable talking in front of an
timing, and banging the little gavel we got. Each and take over the roles of the outgoing members. audience. Toastmasters gave me a sense of how
class had a di erent topic - gestures, voice, Leadership is important to provide direction and a governing body is run, by showing us the
vocabulary, etc. Now you may be wondering how momentum for any activity or enterprise. We have responsibilities of a president, vice president,
exactly the YLF is di erent from a regular speech secretary, and sergeant at arms. I believe this was a
class. We had these exercises called Table Topics, seen leaders take charge of countries and good starting point for us to take up other
and it was basically impromptu speaking. We would companies and take them to new heights. KC YLF is leadership roles and run an organization like YLF.
go up, get a topic, and would have to talk about a forum provided by the Kerala Club to build
that topic for a couple of minutes. All in all, these leaders. Starting young gives us a whole new I feel the Toastmaster enrichment program was the
sessions really helped me grow as a public speaker perspective on how we can be molded into good first stepping stone into programs like the YLF.
and I’m thankful for that. leaders and citizens. It is not just about giving back Throughout this journey of Toastmasters, I’ve been
to the Malayali community, but to the society at able to come out of a shell when it comes to public
Now that you all are aware of what the YLF is, we
can talk about what it could possibly do. YLF aims large. As an 8th grader, I was fortunate to speaking. I hope to retain all of what I learned here
to be beneficial to the society and make a positive participate in this initiative and imbibe a lot of this and take it with me to the workforce. As for the YLF,
impact by organizing fundraisers, charity events, “can do” spirit. It also gave me an opportunity to I hope we create an organization that encourages
volunteering, etc. Through these programs we strive share and interact with high schoolers and adults in us to take up leadership roles and learn what it is
to acquire skills such as time management, task a very stress-free and collegial environment. like to run an organization. The future of the YLF is
prioritization, crisis management, being a better yet to be written, but hopefully, we will be able to
team player and becoming a better listener. write one fantastic story!
Possessing these skills will make us better leaders
and will mold our character to create an even better
future.
In conclusion, I would like to leave you all with a
quote by Bill Gates: “As we look ahead into the next Nandana
century, leaders will be those who empower
others.” Neha Reuben
My journey basically started back in the summer of
2019 when Arun Uncle came up to me and a couple
of friends and told us we needed to make a video.
School had just ended, and I had gone to that picnic Eight months ago, in May of 2019, our coordinator,
with the mindset of getting no work done. Next Arun Das, came to my friends and me during the KC
thing I knew, we were recording a video for some
sort of youth leadership thing. Fast forward a Mihika Shibu picnic. He began talking about an organization
couple of months and we are having our first called Toastmasters and the Youth Leadership
meeting for the YLF. I was pleasantly surprised that Program or YLP. He emphasized how he wanted to
even though it was a speech class, it wasn’t like the enroll us in Toastmasters and start our own YLP in
the Kerala Club, and thought we were the perfect
usual, boring classes I had taken before. Since it was
with a bunch of my friends, the environment was kids for the job. We were confused and skeptical
fun and pleasant. Everyone there was really about the idea; some of us didn’t even want to do it,
encouraging, and it was easy to tell that every Kerala Club Youth Leadership Forum focuses on but shhh..., don’t tell Arun Uncle. But surely, by Oct
single person genuinely wanted to help us learn enabling us to communicate our ideas and showcase of 2019, the first Toastmasters class had begun, and
more. The sessions were not completely strict and the leadership skills we never thought we had. We for the next eight weeks, we would learn how to